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The Saturday Morning Market of Arles, France

Arles holds a special place in my memory, not only because this southern French city guards a dazzling treasure trove of Roman monuments, but also because twice a week it puts on a huge show honoring local products and individual shopkeepers: Le Marché d’Arles. When my travel buddy, Melissa, and I visited Arles in February, we made sure to time our visit on a Saturday so as to coincide with the city’s huge market, which combines what we would call flea markets and farmers markets in the States.

Held every Wednesday and Saturday morning since 1584, the market of Arles takes place right outside the limits of the old town, alternating between the Boulevard Émile-Combes to the east on Wednesdays and the Boulevard des Lices to the south on Saturdays. Markets such as these make for one of the best ways to get to know a city’s culture and that of the surrounding region, and Arles’ was no different. We rubbed shoulders with longtime residents and recent immigrants, indulged hawking vendors and tasted their wares, and even learned some practical French food-related vocabulary.

The first thing that struck me was simply how very Mediterranean a city Arles is. Dozens of varieties of olives reminded me of the year I lived in the capital of Spain’s olive country (Jaén province), as did bottles and tins of locally-sourced olive oil. Sugary dates still clung to their branches and fragrant spices caught my eye out of unfurled sacks, recalling my experience in the souks of Morocco. But let’s not forget Arles is barely an hour’s drive north of the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

Arles’ weekend market was also unmistakably Provençal. Although we missed the region’s lavender bloom by about six months (whomp whomp), we still got to drink deeply in the heavenly aroma of Provence’s world-famous lavender, harvested and dried in the next village over. You can’t go wrong picking up a bag of lavender flowers for a souvenir, that’s for sure. I also nabbed a bag of herbes de Provence, a mixture of rosemary, savory, basil, thyme, and marjoram that would add a lovely dash of flavor to pan-fried pork chops or chicken when I returned home.

And—surprise, surprise—this was a French market, through and through. Gigantic wheels of cheese sat on terraced displays, with sliced cutaways unlocking the rich, heady smells of each individual protected variety. Loaves, rolls, and rings of warm bread tempted our inner carboholics, but it was the boxes of macarons that really did me in—I couldn’t resist shelling out some pocket change for one of those delicate sandwich desserts in pistachio flavor.

Melissa and I felt very welcome at the market, even as camera-toting tourists with little intention of buying our weekly groceries there. When she went up to a fruit seller to get a single apple for a mid-morning snack, the Algerian who ran the shop simply gave it to her, for free! And a Greek couple patiently introduced us to some of the specialties they had brought over with them from the eastern Mediterranean: dolma, grape leaf rolls stuffed with moist, seasoned rice, and loukum, or Turkish delight. We had such a positive learning experience simply strolling down the boulevard, taking pictures, and asking questions in our very limited French. One day I would love to come back to Arles and stay in an apartment just so I can buy cooking ingredients at this outdoor market.

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If you’re like me, you’ve probably learned Spanish as it’s spoken throughout Latin America. Now, I know there is no one single standard Latin American accent, but there are a few things I’ve noticed when listening to Spaniards speak that distinguish them from Spanish speakers in, for example, Nicaragua or Argentina. Since living here for the greater part of a year, I’ve both consciously resisted and unconsciously picked up on many features of the typical Spanish accent. After thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided there are around five characteristics that most distinguish the Spanish of Spain from the Spanish of the Americas. These five sounds, when spoken in the Castilian way, will bring you much closer to sounding native.

1) Pronounce C before E & I and Z like TH
In the Americas you’ll hear the words ciudad (“city”), cereza (“cherry”), and zorro (“fox”) pronounced as “see-oo-DAHD” [sjuˈðað], “say-RAY-sah” [seˈɾe.sa], and “SOE-rroe” [ˈso.ro]. However, in Spain, you’ll pick …

This week I’ll be going into my third week in Spanish classrooms, but even in that short amount of time I’ve picked up on the words the kiddos use to get the attention of me or the teacher I’m helping.

1) profe
Pronounced “PROE-fay” [ˈpɾo.fe], this is a shortening of the Spanish word profesor or profesora, which looks like our word “professor” but means both university professor and teacher in any grade.

2) seño
Pronounced “SAY-nyoe” [ˈse.ɲo], this is a shortening of the Spanish words señorita (“Miss”) or señora (“Mrs.”). Two syllables are always easier to say than three or four!

4) teacher
In Spain, they learn British English in schools, so they pronounce the word “teacher” as “TEE-chuh” [ˈti.tʃə]. Sometimes they do attempt the American pronunciation, but it comes out more like “TEE-chahrr” [ˈti.tʃar].

Read my Galician crash course here to get up to speed in the language.Galician is a Romance language (i.e., from Latin) spoken by about 3 million people in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia. Although it’s most closely related to Portuguese—which is spoken south of the border—it shares many similarities with Castilian Spanish, including sounds and spelling.

If you’re planning on spending any time traveling or living in this unique corner of Spain, or walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that ends here, even a tiny knowledge of Galician will help you get around and navigate menus, maps, etc. If you happen to speak Spanish, you’re already 80% of the way to understanding Galician, and I’m serious! Getting a grasp on the grammatical and phonological differences will turbo boost you up to 90%.